Trucker in Tracy Morgan crash charged

Share this:

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

NEW JERSEY – The truck driver who crashed into Tracy Morgan‘s limo bus last year was indicted by a New Jersey grand jury on Wednesday.

Kevin Roper was driving on the New Jersey Turnpike in June 2014 when he crashed into the vehicle carrying the former “Saturday Night Live” and “30 Rock” funnyman and his friends, causing a pileup that seriously injured the comedian and killed his friend.

Roper was charged with first degree aggravated manslaughter, vehicular homicide, and eight counts of aggravated assault in varying degrees by a Middlesex County, New Jersey grand jury, according to the indictment provided by James O’Neill in the District Attorney’s office.

CNN reached out to Roper’s lawyer several times for comment but has not heard back.

Roper’s truck driver fatigue — exacerbated by his decision to drive 12 hours to work before he even started his 14-hour shift — likely caused the crash that killed comedian James McNair and seriously injured Morgan, the National Transportation Safety Board said in August.

Morgan settled with Walmart, the owner of the truck, for an undisclosed amount over the deadly car crash, earlier this year.

Morgan, who was in a coma for two weeks after the accident, said recently that his life would never be the same.

“You’re never going to be normal after you go through something like that. You don’t die for a few weeks and then come back to normal, trust me,” he said. “Something’s going to be missing, something’s going to be gained — you just got to live your life after that. But after surviving something like that, I’m probably never going to feel normal.”

Morgan “went to the other side” while he was in a coma and learned that his time on Earth was not quite up, he said, in an interview with Complex. “This is not something I’m making up,” Morgan said. “Do you know what God said to me? He said, ‘Your room ain’t ready. I still got something for you to do.’ And here I am, doing an interview with you.”

He married longtime girlfriend Megan Wollover, who stood by him after the crash, in an August wedding ceremony. And he returned to host “Saturday Night Live” in October.